a Honolulu blog

On Wednesday, February 7, the kick-off rally for the Pro Bowl took place in Downtown Honolulu. People looking out their office windows couldn’t miss the giant NFL football that had been placed just behind the stage area. While Honolulu’s Mayor, Mufi Hannemann, and the Royal Hawaiian Band were there to welcome the NFL in style, the real crowd pleasers were the team mascots and the cheerleaders who were also in attendance, and doing what they do best! Even though it was still early in the week, we did manage to have a few of the players present – the ones who had already touched down at Honolulu International Airport.
It started to rain but people still pressed forward to get a good view of the sexy beauties, the likes of which are rarely seen in this usually mundane business district. Everyone stayed put and the people with cameras had to fight the rain, dripping umbrellas and the surrounding pools of water to get pictures of the young beauties that kept smiling through it all. Fortunately for me, the rain and I get along quite nicely and I really don’t mind getting drenched. Unfortunately for me, soaking wet business attire and air conditioning do not get along quite so well.

All of this fuss is just for the NFL’s All-Star game? Yes, Super Bowl XLI, the highlight of the football season, has come and gone but we’re not ready to say farewell to the season just yet. Selected Players from the NFC (National Football Conference) and the AFC (American Football Conference) will hit the turf just one more time on February 10th at Aloha Stadium. Banners like the one to the left are flying from the light posts along King Street through downtown Honolulu and portent the start of just one more football event. The votes of fans, coaches and other NFL football players create the team rosters that list the players who will grace our presence in the Pro Bowl this year.

While the Indianapolis Colts are, of course, the stars of the NFL and will be represented nicely by five of their players: Harrison, Wayne, Manning, Saturday and Glenn, the San Diego Chargers lead the league with a record-breaking ten players in attendance!

Mahalo NFL!

While Honolulu welcomed the NFL with open arms, the NFL had a nice surprise announcement of its own. NFL Charities granted $100,000 made up of various amounts to a selection of sixteen Hawaii-based, non-profit organizations. Even more surprising, for me, was the fact that the NFL has been doing this for over ten years now. NFL Charities focuses its grant-making on youth, education and sports-related medical research. It’s always an admirable thing to see such a large for-profit organization giving back to the communities they touch in the course of their activities.

Mahalo to the NFL for giving football fans just one more week of gridiron entertainment, and a very big aloha and mahalo for the generous grants provided to the members of our non-profit community!